Connecting Austar sat in Australia (1 Viewer)

[DJ-Studd]

Hi fellow Aussies...
I have a dilemma!

My mother in law (MIL) wants me to put together a MediaPortal HTPC for my father in law (FIL).
The issue is that my FIL is not very IT literate, and that is being generous...

He would like to record Austar on the HTPC.
What options are available? I fear that the only option is to record it with a capture card, but that defeats the purpose of an HTPC in my mind.

Should I convince him to get a decent PVR? At the moment he has a Panasonic HDD/DVD recorder which he has almost worn out.

In an ideal world, the HTPC would control Austar just like it does DVB-T...

Cheers!
DJ

 

[MadMagpie]

Capture card is the only way I know of, I have a sat card and cam but austar changed their stream to stop 3rd party boxes working with austar and that made my sat card obsolete, I have a cheap PVR2000 in my HTPC, it captures via S-video, I use this card because it has a hardware chip for capturing, I've never found a software capture card I have liked.
We also have the austar mystar HD box and if your FIL can use the standard austar box the mystar isn't a big leap.